There may have been 59,000 enrollees in the California Obamacare plan, but you neglected to mention the 1 million residents in California who had their insurance plans cancelled.

In addition, over 5 million people nationally have lost their current coverage due to not meeting the Obama insurance “standards.” Trying to extricate themselves from this disaster, the Obama administration is issuing waivers, extensions, etc. to try to postpone as much damage as possible through the election in November of 2014. The problem is about 85 percent of Americans were quite content with the health insurance coverage and cost for same in their current policies. Now we see big government at its worst, trying to dictate what insurance coverage and premiums everyone must have. This health care law should be rescinded.

DDT never caused a bird reduction. You can verify this by going to Audubon bird counts on Google during the DDT high usage period and find that bird counts grew markedly during that time. The Environmental Protection Agency ban on DDT caused the malaria death toll to skyrocket. Millions of people have suffered and died unnecessarily, most of them pregnant women and children. DDT never caused any human health problem. A study tracked the health of workers and families who worked in DDT factories and carried a lot of DDT home on their clothes. They had a high level of DDT in their bodies, but the only health variation from the general population was the DDT folks had a significant lower cancer rate than the general population. A research study was underway when DDT ban took place. The participants were taking 35 mg a day to determine minimum requirement to reduce cancer rate.

— William E. Ross, Woodland Hills

Nuclear deal good for Iran

Re “Iran deal raising anxiety levels” (Nov. 25):

The deal with Iran is good for Iran, not so good for the rest of the world. The partially enriched uranium that they already have can easily be used to make dirty bombs.

All students should learn both cursive writing and typing/keyboarding. As a college history major and now an active genealogist, I realize that if our students don’t learn cursive writing, they also won’t be able to read it, cutting them off from all original sources prior to the last few years. They would not be able to read the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and family letters. They would not be able to do original research in any field, but be totally dependent on what a transcriber thinks a document says. We should not allow this kind of “ignorance” to happen, and call it “education.”